


The Music Out The Window

by orphan_account



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 3rd person, F/F, Nice evening with a touch of existential crisis, low-key lesbian activity, soft, yenna has to convince tissaia to leave her fucking study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24508771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Master time as it masters you, or you will fall victim to its whims. Sometimes one can forget exactly what that means, sometimes one can give into the illusion of control rather than the actual thing, and sometimes all it takes is the music out the window and someone who has given into its draw to remind you of what you have lost to Time.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	The Music Out The Window

The way the world readied itself for sleep was so well known to Tissaia that it hardly registered; The way the air tended to calm. The way the hairs of one's body would prickle should you allow the cooling air to engulf you. The way the dampness gifted by the sea would cling softer, but seep so much deeper into reality than it ever did in the waking hours. But she never felt the change first hand, not anymore. She would look up from her desk once and see the sun on the wall, casting it's long shadows across the floor, then she would look up again and find the darkness licking through the sky. She wouldn't pay it any thought, she wouldn't think when she waved a hand, ordering the candles to light. The time just passed, and the longer it did, the smaller each moment became. Less important, less consequential. 

She came to learn quite early in her life that one can not stay entirely sane without having some type of comradery with Time. To come to an agreement, allow Time to master her as she did it. But every so often the balance would slip. No, there was no balance, that was just the simple, the sane way everyone has agreed to explain it. Instead, it was an understanding that allowed them to master each other. An understanding that whispers the rules; decrying time moves forward whether you say so or not, telling you that the longer one keeps up with its pace, the more its meaning becomes less, that the significance of the singular will become obsolete, should you stop paying attention. 

She thinks of it like prime numbers: the closer you are to the beginning of the line, the more plentiful these moments are, but the longer one lets the numbers come, the longer one leaves time to move on by its own accorde, the more sparse the moments become. So Time and she have made an agreement, have come to terms with what the other requires, Tissaia is permitted to include whatever moments she want in the significance a long life holds, creating her own or putting value on the ones that aren't gifted to her with a bow, but should she neglect her duties, Time will not hesitate in leaving her with nothing more than the gift of its passing. But sometimes she will forget an element of this agreement, of course, that is also part of the rules. 

Sitting at a desk in the evening, she permits time to master her. She becomes big in the small world she now exists in. Her paperwork, her markings, her letters, they all become the focus, her view narrowed. If you asked her, she could tell you the time, but she never actually knew it. She could recite what the clock's face would read, but the associations were lost. Eight o’clock meant eight o’clock, nothing more. Not betraying that in winter it would mean darkness, nor in summer that of warmer light bracing for night, like now. 

The only reason she knew the day still held strong was by the simple distraction of the music wandering in her windows. Tissaia held the tip of her pen to the paper. But the pen didn't move. There was only the spot of ink growing prettily as she gazed to the direction of the sounds. The intrusion was so terribly out of the ordinary, that it pried her from her little world. It had her pause, the sound of the laughter, and shrieking, and chatter, all permeating the air alongside the smell of the fires smoke, encroaching its way into the hollowness of her study. It contracted the cool quiet of the room pleasantly, so she let the ink seep into the paper as she sat with a glad thought to her compliance at allowing the little festival to happen in the first place.

“I see you’re working as hard as ever.” Yennefer walked into the room slowly, eyes drifting around as if it were the first time she had been there.

Tissaia lifted her pen from the paper. She looked ever so slightly startled, with one hand flexed on her lap and the other hovering in the air. Her face betrayed nothing of that, calm and unimpressed. “I can't tell if you intend that as sarcasm.”

Yennefer shrugged, eyeing the small black dot on the paper. There was a loud burst of laughter from the party below and both turned to the window, even though they saw nothing but sky. “Why haven't you joined us?” Then Yennefer snapped her head to Tissaia. “And don't tell me you were planning on coming later. Don't lie to me.” her hand gestured to the stack of work that was too big to mean anything other than a normal nights work.

Tissaia raised her eyebrow as she grabbed the papers, shuffling them until they were perfectly aligned. “I couldn't merely be working through part of it before I came down?” Yennefer looked unimpressed. 

“She who can't let a crease be seen on her dress expects me to believe those papers would be welcome to stay on the desk, incompleat.”

“And I suppose I couldn’t simply put them away, either then?”

“They are  _ distinctly _ different bits of work that obviously-” Yennefer huffed. 

A smirk tugged at Tissaia's lips before she made her face neutral once again. “I have work I need to do.” Her pen began to scratch away at the parchment.

“Yes, you always do. So do many of the people who have already drunk themselves flammable.” 

"Is that how you would have me spend my evening?" Tissaia scoffed. Her cool eyes lifted from the paper to peer at Yennefer. "Pitifully? Unproductive, and quite useless?" She didn't wait for a response, she didn't care to hear it. Looking back to her work, she cemented her resolve against distraction.

Yennefer opened her mouth, then her eyes narrowed and she closed it. She staked over to the desk and lent over it, but Tissaia didn't look up. Instead, like the impulsive creature she is, Yennefer grabbed Tissaia's chin and forced her to look. Tissaia glared daggers through Yennefer's very soul and began to raise her hand. Before Tissaia could remove Yennefer's grip, Yennefer lightly pinned both of her wrists to the desk. Tissaia looked decidedly impassive at the move, so Yennefer took that as a sign to quickly get to the point.

"Is that what you think? A night free of responsibility is pitifully unproductive?"

"I did not say that." 

"But is it what you think?"

"No."

Yennefer paused. She looked into the blue eyes in front of her. "Is it what you fear?"

Tissaia ripped her head away from Yennefer's hand and glared unfocused at the wall beside them. "No."

Yennefer sighed. "Not for the others, but for yourself, Tissaia." She squeezed the woman's hands. "Are you afraid you will get lost without the sameness? That one unproductive weaning to the momentary will mean the collapse of your system?"

"No." 

"What is it then?" Yennefer asked softly. This time she didn't grab Tissaia's chin, but lead it with one finger so she was looking her in the eyes. 

"Our language is hardly efficient." Tissaia said, and Yennefer chuckled. 

"So I was a bit right? Or are you a bit stuck?"

Tissaia sighed and closed her eyes. She leant forward a little, and Yennefer decided to meet her forehead halfway. They were still as Tissaia found the right words. "You were right about somethings, but ever so wrong too." She sighed once more, long and slow, and learnt back enough to look Yennefer in the eyes. "I believe I have forgotten. I have forgotten to control, and instead gave into the illusion of it. To feel as if I have the mastery, instead of actually possessing it. I forgot." She shook her head. 

"That happens sometimes."

Tissaia hummed. "Yes, it does." 

"Though, I don't think you need any more control in your life."

"That's where you're wrong. I need control, achieving the right type is all that provides difficulty. I need the power over myself, I need it to be fulfilled." 

"Why not be happy instead of fucking fulfilled, Tissaia?"

"My dear, being fulfilled is what grants me my happiness. I am not arbitrarily chasing an emotion, but what I know will provide it." She glanced away. "But I got lost again." 

Yennefer furrowed her brows. "Where do you find yourself?" 

"Stuck in an evening that bleeds together with the next and the last." She removes her hands from under Yennefer's, and leans her face down and into them. Time has mastered her without restraint. She has let it take real estate over her nights with controlling just how entirely. 

"Then let's escape it." Yennefer said. "Run away, and return to the work when the evening is yours and singular again. Take control and leave it to break, you can come back and fix it again after." 

"I know I must," Her entire body relaxed, as if a bridge whose supports finally snapped. She tilted her head to Yennefer. "Yennefer,"

"Yes?"

The song from the ground below faded away and another picked up its place, leaving no room between for the sound of the hollow musings of the evening, only the music. The noises of the party goers slipped more into the background as the song rang clearer and louder than the one before.

Tissaia broke eye contact. "Thank you."

"First a please, now a thank you?" Yennefer teased. "Have you lost your mind? Have  _ I? _ "

Tissaia glared, resisting the urge to smack her too. A smirk plastered on Yennefer's face as she stood up straight and held out a hand for Tissaia. The woman took it with no hesitance, and didn't even object when Yennefer hooked their arms together.

"I do mean it, Yennefer. You have saved me a good deal of pain." Tissaia said softly, stopping them short of the door. "Stubborn and impulsive as you are, I might have needed it."

"You definitely do." Yennefer earned herself another glare. She ignored it and waited for Tissaia to cast a quick tidying spell on the room, and let her smooth out her clothes before she continued. "Just as I need your strict and cautious qualities to hold me back from creating disaster." Tissaia looked at her with a blank face but curious eyes and Yennefer looked back at her. Neither said anything but Tissaia's face softened before she led them out the study's doors and into the cool breeze passing through the halls. They walked through the silent emptiness that filled the abandoned corridors, until Yennefer broke it. "When we decide to work together, we do it well." Meet with no response, she continued, "We clash until we meet in the middle, but when we do, all that we both hold separately comes together. When we are both aimed in the same direction the power feels unstoppable." 

The music began to slither it's way in through the windows again the closer they got to the party. Tissaia listened to it, she listened to Yennefer's breath, betraying her nerves. She looked out the windows and watched as the clouds passed, watched as the wind tugs at the water, she felt the change in the air as the sun lowered, and smelt the salt of the sea, and Yennefer's lilac and gooseberry perfume, as well as the remanence of her own. "We are two extremes. Together we are-"

"Balanced?" Yennefer asked, amused. 

"No. That's the sane way to describe it. We are not so simple as to be described that way, are we?"

Yennefer smiled. "Then what are we, Tissaia?"

"Together we are  _ power _ . The power that comes with the two sided understanding of a comradery that will always consist of opposition. In understanding this, the extremes can be brought fully. Neither will be left behind, neither will be defeated nor mastered. It is us both seeing the target clearer, stabilizing the other in the process, and being able to command all of our power more fully because of it." 

Yennefer looked at her a moment, slowing their pace. She crinkled her nose. "Do you mean to tell me that any argument I've won against you, I only thought I won?"

Tissaia held back a smile. "Yes, those battles were very much in your head, dear. We simply came to agreement."

"Fine, if that means I didn't win, or lose." Yennefer relented with a nod. "But if you keep calling me dear, I will start calling you darling."

Tissaia turned to her sharply, narrowing her eyes. "You will do no such thing." 

Yennefer hummed. "We can test that theory if you want."

"We will not test it." 

"Good, because we have a party to attend." Yennefer latched onto Tissaia tighter and pulled them the last little ways through the hall, into the evening air and loud music, and Tissaia entered the world beyond her papers once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Make sure to tell me what you think, like and don't like. And don't worry about hurting my feelings, I dont have any.
> 
> If you want me to add a second chapter say the word, right now it's just the one but I have ideas I'd be able to flush out if it is so requested of me.
> 
> Have a wonderful day/night, and dont forget to take a moment to kick time in the balls, even it that just means sitting down for a moment and appreciating a sunset or what-not.
> 
> -Your friendly neighborhood something or other


End file.
